Where is God? Christians tired of being "misrepresented" need to work harder to show what they believe

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Where you locate God affects how you relate to social justice. One location allows you to keep your religion separate from social change and political discourse, the other insists these cannot be viewed separately.

If you have or choose to read previous essays and speculations published here, you will come to recognize that my views on religion and spirituality are nuanced and fluid. For example, I find the declaring belief or lack of belief in God to be an impediment rather than a useful clarification (at least for myself). And while I rarely use the word much in my personal life, I often use "God" when writing about religion and spirituality as a shorthand for the deeper, grander mysteries of life and existence that transcend a human capacity for (full) comprehension or control.

I eschew adjectives such as "personal" and "impersonal" when it comes to discussions of divinity, with the use of the word "God" revealing an orientation toward understanding and experiencing existence. Neither strictly as an ideal nor as a specific object, but a larger unity underlying and pervading all we are, all we know, all we can be. Again, at least when I'm writing about this stuff or pushed to ask what kind of God might make sense to me. There isn't much need to worry about such depictions or definitions of God for my daily living. In practical terms I tend to leave "God" unfettered by words and overly specific expectations.

So if you're trying to figure out which category my views belong in when figuring out what angle I'm coming from in relation to the topic at hand, it's one of those really open approaches that drives some people with more fixed notions of what God must (not) or can(not) be to distraction. Yet I bring this up for more than honest disclosure about my own take on the idea of something like the concept of God. Because how one thinks about God shapes how one thinks about the value and purpose of formal religion in state-level societies as well as the larger global community.

If I had some need to worry about it, I suppose it would make sense that "God" (used here to represent the central concern or focus of religious notions of spiritual depth and personal transcendence) would be omnipresent yet not limited to any particular place or time. One of those weird sounding ideas theologians and philosophers talk about, this is sometimes rendered as being immanent (it's here with us) and transcendent (it's far beyond us) at the same time. There are ways of discussing how this works, including a kind of split-level monism in which immanence and transcendence reflect differences in perception and thus represent different modes of awareness, but we aren't getting into anything so heavy here. Not today.

But why does it matter where God is "located"? And what does it have to do with how those who identify as Christian behave and how they are perceived?

Evangelical fundamentalists are guilty of the sin of homosexuality

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Even as they rail against the so-called gay agenda and wring their hands over what they perceive to be the legitimization of immorality, homosexuality remains a source of sin of which for which many who identify as Christians are guilty and for which they have yet to repent. But the gay community and its allies may yet set them free.

I say this for good reason, but there are some reasons that I do not claim. I don't claim to speak for anyone other than myself. Nor do I have any desire to pass judgment over any particular person or set myself up an official arbiter of religious righteousness or holiness, whether for Christianity or any other tradition.

But I do choose to emply the language some Christians use in passing judgment and condemning others for their sexual orientation (and we can expand that to their hangups over gender identity as well) in describing some observations about their perspective and behavior that I find objectionable.

A few words on sin

I find it interesting that sin and salvation can be understood in terms of spaciousness. The Jewish conception of salvation has a direct connection to the imagery of spaciousness, of being in a broad and fruitful place. This imagery can be taken in many ways, including phenomenologically, literally, metaphorically, imaginally, practically, and so on. Similarly, sin is connected to being confined, of being in a pit, or bound in chains, or in a desolate place.

As an offshoot of one of the first century sects of Judaism, Christianity has appropriated much of the imagery of its cultural forebears, at times keeping its original sense and at times modifying it. Dante Alighieri used this same imagery of constriction, for example, for depicting Hell as a place that gradually becomes narrower and more sparsely populated until it reaches Satan stuck in a small, dark, isolated space at the bottom.

Taking in this imagery, it suggests that the more deeply one becomes lost in such limiting and stale space, the more one descends into a barren, joyless, and fruitless existence. Shallow diversions and intense emotional distractions may temporarily seem to liven up this space, but their effects wear off more quickly after each use. A sense of hollowness and a deep malaise lurks when the noise stops. When silence is heard once more in the heart and mind.

The more time one spends in such a space, the more it changes a person. While the effects may not be perfectly consistent or universal, they involve a deep insecurity and sense of being unfulfilled. How these effects are expressed also varies. Some respond to this by denial, oddly enough by trying to fill their lives with noise that gives at least the appearance if not the sensation of being confident and successful. This becomes transmuted into arrogance and greed.

Other coveted virtues yield similar results, with condescension and cheapness masquerading as charity, manipulation, coercion, and gossip as concern, and so on. Unable to experience or express the genuine article, the counterfeits are tainted or corrupted. This perversion isn't necessarily intentional, and may in fact be the result of better intentions. Outwardly things may appear pleasant if not a little artificial or overdone.

Based on my own experiences and the reported experiences of others, this kind of sugar coated hypocrisy has become a stereotype of the evangelical fundamentalist Christian. They are by no means exclusive in having members that fit this mold. It does seem to be related, though, to seeking the kind of noise that covers the unease and gives the desired appearance and sense of self. A kind of noise that betrays a sense of not knowing or being comfortable with what it is they claim to possess.

This noise is manifest as an externalizing desire that transforms that hidden need to possess, to control, what they claim to already have by turning it into concrete expressions. Expressions based on loose perceptions of something they understand only in words and gestures. Thus "Jesus", "Christ", "The Cross", "God", "Salvation", "Heaven", and others are sold as books, music, decorations, and knick-knacks in circular, self-referential theology and diluted liturgy.

Some may end up resembling this stereotype based on imitation and inherited cultural patterns, so the underlying dynamics described aren't meant to reflect everyone who in someway resemble this stereotype. Nor is this stereotype the only outcome of those who find themselves in such a stifling, suffocating space. Rather it seems to be an outcome for those who are trying to convince themselves and others that they really do have the "fruits of the Spirit" (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) when they lack sufficient inner spaciousness, springs, and light to bear them to the degree that they wish to present.

For those who are unfamiliar with or who have an aversion to religious language, as well as for those who recognize it but want to see how it works into the observation I started with, allow me to briefly unpack that imagery a little as I show why this relates to fundamentalist attitudes toward issues such as sexuality and gender identification.

A Prayer When I Feel Hated

           Image by See-ming Lee 李思明SML                via Flickr

Today's post features a prayer written for those who feel excluded or harassed or bullied, written in response to the highly publicized suicides of teens who were tormented for being gay or for being suspected of being gay.  Granted it is a Christian prayer, and many of my readers are not part of that faith tradition, but it's still worth sharing.  And if you have one from your own faith tradition that you think would be appropriate to this theme, send it my way and I'll put it up as well.

A Prayer When I Feel Hated by Father James Martin, S.J.

Loving God, you made me who I am.
I praise you and I love you,
for I am wonderfully made, in your own image.

Sympathy for the (self-described) traditionalists

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Let's say that the Pope, the Cardinals and Bishops, and the rest of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church decided that women should be priests, priests can marry, that homosexual acts aren't disordered, etc, etc. Or that the most conservative members of the Anglican Communion drop their objections to ordaining unapologetic homosexuals.  The big changes that progressive Christians tend to talk about. This is not about inviting people to explain why this cannot happen because of tradition or church law - it's just a hypothetical, a thought-experiment.

Then those fighting for such change become the traditionalists, don't they? Once they have things just as they believe they should be, how would they react to radical change? What if other groups were lobbying to have acceptance for bestiality, necrophilia, etc? I am not drawing a direct moral equivalence here, but a relative one. That is, while some may not have a problem with homosexuality, bisexuality, etc, they likely have a problem with these other practices. Referring to performing such acts as "disordered" may even be perceived as an understatement.


So how would we want the Church to respond to people who had for whatever reason developed a sexual interest in animals or corpses?